Moment Bends
- Architecture in Helsinki
- Band Name: Architecture in Helsinki
- Record Label: Downtown
- Release Date: May 3, 2011
- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
May 4, 201185The regression in complexity seems to underscore the band's endorsement of arrested development as the secret to eternal youth. Their perpetual glee suggests that maybe they're onto something.
-
Apr 29, 201176Consistently being an upbeat adult isn't exactly an easy thing to do and at least here the band show that they can mature without having to completely forget who they once were.
-
May 4, 201172The record plays like an old mixtape: a few songs you dig, a few you forget, and two or three you can't stop playing, that you can't keep from becoming part of a night the pictures can't do justice, of a packed dance-floor, of a girl you didn't kiss, of a midnight drive.
-
Aug 30, 201170The album is musically in the vein of future island funk/disco meeting '80s synth-pop.
-
May 16, 201170There are a kit if sounds present, but the band manage to make them come together as one. [Jun 2011, p.106]
-
May 4, 201170Overall Moment Bends is a return to form, if not quite as inspired as Architecture in Helsinki's best moments.
-
May 2, 201165Places Like This proved that Architecture in Helsinki could grow out of their early sound without growing tame, that they could change their voice but keep their charm; Moment Bends too often finds them losing one, the other, or both.
-
May 6, 201160Never afraid to cop a new style or try something that might not work, Architecture in Helsinki has thrown listeners for a loop yet again.
-
May 2, 201160My problem is that AIH don't really give much away. There isn't any real personality on show. It could be any musicians.
-
May 3, 201158The new record goes too far toward buffing out the quirks of its predecessor, mistaking studio compression and unexciting genre exercises for more focused songwriting.
-
Apr 29, 201150After several listens, it's still not entirely clear what Moment Bends is striving to be, or, for that matter, what its creators are trying to say with it.
-
May 16, 201140Unfortunately, too many of their other choruses aim high yet fall flat. [May 2011, p.109]
-
May 2, 201140Unfortunately it ends up as the kind of glossily produced "perfect pop" you can spin a dozen times without ever remembering a single tune. [May 2011, p.77]
-
May 16, 201130It's always admirable when an artist or a band attempts to create a piece of music that differs from what came before. Unfortunately for Architecture in Helsinki, their new work fails as a cohesive whole, salvaged only by two or three songs here and there.